Claire Hartfield

Claire Hartfield (born July 3, 1957)[1] is an American writer of history-inspired novels, best known for her Coretta Scott King Award-winning non-fiction novel A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919.

Claire Hartfield
Born (1957-07-03) July 3, 1957
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
EducationBA, JD
Alma materYale College, University of Chicago
Genrepicture books, non-fiction
Notable worksA Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919
Notable awards2019 Coretta Scott King Award for Author Honor
Years active2012-present
SpousePhil Harris
Children3
Website
clairehartfield.com

Personal life

Hartfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a white Jewish father and a black mother and has three sisters.[1]

At 10, she was chosen to dance with the Russian Bolshoi ballet company while they were vising Chicago and later became a member of the Yaledancers in college, the oldest group of ballet dancers at Yale University.[2][1]

Despite being a writer focusing on historical events now, Hartfield says that she never really enjoyed history class in school, because she found that the texts they read were unrelatable and unapplicable to her life.[3] It wasn't until college, when attended an anti-apartheid rally with her friends and read a book about the life of South African anti-apartheid activist Steven Biko, that she developed an interest in history.[3]

She graduated with a B.A. degree from Yale College and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School.[4]

Hartfield has three children, all daughters, named Emily, Caroline, and Corinne.[1]

Selected works

Hartfield's non-fiction novel A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, tells the story of the 1919 Chicago Race Riots that killed 38 people and wounded 537, two thirds of which were black victims.[5]

Hartfield first heard of the Chicago Race Riots through her grandmother, who lived through them and found herself in the middle of the riots at twenty years old when stepping out of her home in summer 1919.[5][6]

A few years prior to writing the book, she was again reminded of her grandmother's story when she saw the way police were interacting with protestors in the United States and wrote A Few Red Drops with the goal in mind to inspire coming generations to figure out a way to bring about change.[3]

The novel's title was inspired by a line in the Carl Sandberg poem "I Am the People, the Mob," published in 1916, which reads "Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.”[6] Hartfield encountered the poem well into writing the novel while researching poems from the early 20th century and found that it summed up the message of her story perfectly.[3][6]

Bibliography

Non-fiction

  • A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 (Clarion, 2017)

Picture Books

  • Me and Uncle Romie: A Story Inspired by the Life and Art of Romare Beardon, illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue (Dial Books, 2012)

Awards

    Nominee

    • 2018 L.A. Times Book Prize for A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919[7]

    Won

    • 2019 Coretta Scott King Award for Author Honor for A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919[8]
    gollark: They have an ORM *too*?
    gollark: Possible horrible future: what if, eventually, the V person manages to trick lots of people into contributing to V, and it actually becomes somewhat good?
    gollark: Which will be a hardware implementation of V and a V compiler, thus allowing 1Gloc/s compilation.
    gollark: It's for the upcoming vChip™.
    gollark: This is very no.

    References
    1. "About". Claire Hartfield. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    2. "YALEDANCERS.COM". yaledancers.com. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    3. "A FEW RED DROPS: An Interview with Claire Hartfield". The Booklist Reader. 2018-02-05. Retrieved 2019-05-12.
    4. "★ Claire Hartfield is a nationally recognized children's book author and education leader". AALBC.com, the African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    5. "Five questions for Claire Hartfield — The Horn Book". www.hbook.com. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    6. "Author Chat with Claire Hartfield (A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919), Plus Giveaway!". www.yabookscentral.com. Retrieved 2019-05-12.
    7. Schaub, Michael. "L.A. Times Book Prize finalists include Michelle Obama and Susan Orlean; Terry Tempest Williams receives lifetime achievement award". latimes.com. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    8. JCARMICHAEL (2019-01-28). "Claire Hartfield, Ekua Holmes win 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Awards". News and Press Center. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    9. "Carter G. Woodson Book Award and Honor Winners". National Council for the Social Studies. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
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